On this day in 1962, the Strategic Air Command determined the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis by adopting a war footing and going to Def Con 2. Yesterday, the 22nd, was the anniversary of JFK’s speech where he told the world about the Soviet missiles,

Gen. Power told the Soviets about Def Con 2 at the same time he told his entire Command. He radioed the alert message, not in code but, “in the clear” meaning that anyone listening heard his order in plain English.

And, the Soviets were listening.

Only seventeen years after the end of WW II, everyone involved at the highest levels of both governments, the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R., were veterans.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev survived Stalingrad. The entire leadership of the Soviet Union knew, at the most personal level, the terrible cost of that war. At least half of the 50+ million killed in WW II were Russian.

Kennedy’s experience is well known.

Secretary of Defense McNamara was an officer serving Gen. LeMay.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Maxwell Taylor, as commander of the 101st Airborne, parachuted into Normandy on June 6, 1944 and was the first Allied general to land in France on D-Day.

All the Chiefs were WW II commanders with exemplary records.

Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis E. LeMay, architect of the air war strategy that led to victory in both Europe and the Pacific, was well known to the Soviets. They had a psychological profile of LeMay, as both sides did on everyone they could identify in government.

Fourteen years prior, during the tensions of the Berlin Blockade/Berlin Air Lift, a State Department diplomat in contact with the Soviets was asked if he thought Curtis LeMay would actually use the atomic bomb. The American responded;

You’re God damned right he would."

The Soviet diplomat nodded and said, “We think so, too.” It is believed that this was the chief reason the East/West confrontation in Berlin didn’t widen.

Ditto, Cuba.

CINCSAC General Thomas S. Power, was LeMay’s protégé. No less a warrior, Power flew B-24 missions over Africa and Italy. He was involved in the B-29 firebomb destruction of Japan and participated in the atomic tests in the Pacific.

Once, during the Cold War, the RAND Corporation proposed a counterforce strategy which would require SAC to restrain itself from striking Soviet cities in the beginning of a war, Power responded:

Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards."

Knowing what is in the mind of your adversary is imperative in war and international power politics. On the path to war you damn sure want to know what the enemy is planning.

The Strategic Air Command’s logo was a mailed fist holding an olive branch and three lightning bolts. The slogan, at the entrance of every SAC base was;

Peace is Our Profession"

You can sum up the Strategic Air Command’s strategy succinctly;

Be so strong there can be no war.

Not to diminish the other services; the Navy ran the Blockade, excuse me, the Quarantine, and showed resolve when encountering Soviet submarines. The Marines and Army Airborne units were ready to jump into Cuba.

An Air Force Master Sergeant who was at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida at the time told me nine years after the fact,

We had enough napalm stacked up at Homestead to burn Cuba out of the water.”

When SAC went to Def Con 2 there were 85 B-52s in the air 24/7 carrying between four to six thermonuclear weapons.

The Soviets couldn’t compete. They were outnumbered in every category and Khrushchev knew it.

The only weakness could be in resolve. And that is what our potential adversaries need to know, that we have the resolve to use our power.

Throughout recent history, whenever America has laid down the sword, tyrants saw opportunity and the world was worse off for it.

President Ronald Reagan said it best:

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

The peaceful and successful outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis was a result of strength and the resolve to use that strength. That is a lesson that needs to be understood today.

It's a dangerous world. Perhaps the most dangerous we have seen in generations.

Be so strong there can be no war.

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If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. – Winston Churchill

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Rick Oltman has been politically active for over twenty years. He has lobbied in Washington, DC and in dozens of state capitals for secure borders and immigration enforcement. He has been featured on PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, FOX Business Channel and FOX News. He has hosted two political talk television shows in the San Francisco Bay Area and has hosted and guest hosted talk radio shows. Contact Rick at RickOltman@comcast.net.